From Newsgroup: sci.misc

From the -2life clinging to yer anus-+ department:
Title: MirandarCOs Unlikely Ocean Has Us Asking If ThererCOs Life Clinging On Around Uranus
Author: Tyler August
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:00:24 +0000
Link: https://hackaday.com/2026/02/21/mirandas-unlikely-ocean-has-us-asking-if-theres-life-clinging-on-around-uranus/
Podcast Download URL: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/figure2.jpg?w=186

[image 1]

If yourCOre interested in extraterrestrial life, these past few years have given
an embarrassment of places to look, even in our own solar system. Mars has been an obvious choice since before the Space Age; in the orbit of Jupiter, EuroparCOs
oceans have been of interest since VoyagerrCOs day; the geysers of Enceladus give
Saturn two moons of interest, if you count the possibility of a methane-based chemistry on Titan. Even faraway NeptunerCOs giant moon Triton probably has an ocean layer deep inside. Now the planet Uranus is getting in on the act, offering its moon Miranda for consideration in a kinda-recent-astudy in the Planetary Science Journal.[2]

[image 4][4]Miranda and Uranus, the new hot spot for life-hunters.-a Photomontage credit NASA.

Even if yourCOre into astronomy, it may seem like this is coming out of left field. rCLMiranda, really? What new data could we possibly have on a moon of Uranus nobodyrCOs visited since the 1980s?rCY Well, none, really. This study relies
on reexamining the data collected during the Voyager 2 encounter and trying to make sense of the chaotic, icy world that the space probe revealed.

The faults and other features on Miranda indicated it was geologically active at some point; this study tries to recreate the moonrCOs history through computer
modelling to find that Miranda probably had a reN100 km thick ocean sometime in the last 100-500 million years, and that while some of it has likely frozen since, tidal heating could very well keep a layer of liquid water within the moonrCOs interior. Since the moon itself is only 470 km (290 mi) in diameter, a 100km deep ocean layer would actually be a huge proportion of its volume. [image 6][6]The model is a fairly simple one, with the ocean sandwiched between two layers of ice and a rocky core. Image from Caleb Strom et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 226

Right now, the over-optimistic thinking is that rCLwater means liferCY, since thatrCOs how it seems to work on Earth. It remains to be seen if Miranda, or indeed any of the icy moons, ever evolved so much as a microbe. Aside from the supposed presence of liquid dihydrogen monoxide, thererCOs nothing to suggest they have. Finding out is going to take a while: even with boots rCo er, robots rCo
on the ground, Mars isnrCOt giving up that secret easily[7]. Still, if werCOre able
to discover irrefutable evidence for such extraterrestrial life, it will provide an important constraint on one term of The Drake Equation:[8] what fraction of worlds develop life. That by itself wonrCOt tell us rCLare we alone,rCY
but it will be interesting.

Of course, even if all these worlds are barren now, they might not be for long, once our probes start visiting[9].

Story via Earth.com[10]

Header image: Miranda, imaged by Voyager 2. Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech

Links:
[1]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20241028-Miranda-Voyager2.jpg?w=800 (image)
[2]: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad77d7 (link)
[3]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Montage_of_Uranus_and_Miranda.jpg (link)
[4]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Montage_of_Uranus_and_Miranda.jpg?w=189 (image)
[5]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/figure2.jpg (link)
[6]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/figure2.jpg?w=186 (image) [7]: https://hackaday.com/2022/01/27/sherloc-and-the-search-for-life-on-mars/ (link)
[8]: https://hackaday.com/2022/09/09/frank-drakes-legacy-or-are-we-all-alone-in-the-universe/ (link)
[9]: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/27/life-found-on-ryugu-asteroid-sample-but-it-looks-very-familiar/ (link)
[10]: https://www.earth.com/news/uranus-moon-miranda-may-have-hidden-ocean-possibly-extraterrestrial-life/ (link)
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